CANADA TAKE ACTION: Demand mandatory safety assessments of all genetically engineered foods

CANADA TAKE ACTION: Demand mandatory safety assessments of all genetically engineered foods

Health Canada's public consultation on GMO regulation closes at the end of the day on Monday, May 24. Health Canada is proposing to remove regulation from some genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) foods. Many of the new unregulated GM foods will be produced with the new techniques called genome editing or gene editing.
Tell Health Canada: Assess the risks of genome-edited foods
Demand mandatory, independent risk assessments for all genetically engineered foods, including those produced by genome editing.
Health Canada needs to hear from you:
If you only have 1 minute: Click here to send your instant email.
If you have 10 or more minutes: Email your personalised comments to Health Canada at hc.bmh-bdm.sc@canada.ca and copy info@cban.ca.
For support: check CBAN's guide, CBAN's submission, or Health Canada's website for more information about the proposals and what they mean. All CBAN documents and updates are posted at www.cban.ca/NoExemptions.
Add your voice for the future of our food and democracy!
Example comments
For inspiration, here are comments to the consultation from two well qualified people: E. Ann Clark (Associate Professor, University of Guelph, retired) and Gail Bartlett BSc. Agr., MBA. Both comments are published by GMWatch with permission.
E. Ann Clark (Associate Professor, University of Guelph, retired):
"I have monitored Health Canada’s approach to regulating genetically modified (GM) crops for 25 years and have contributed substantively to public and academic assessments of your performance. Canada’s approach to GM regulation was wrong headed from the start and has not been revised to respond to subsequent research findings. As a result, accumulating harms from GM crops and the herbicide and neonic products they are designed to sell have escaped detection by Canada’s regulatory process. Gene editing – a recent addition to the GM stable – is no less vulnerable to the same harms.
"Twenty five years' experience argues that the solution is not absolving government of responsibility for the safety of gene-edited submissions – as is currently proposed - but rather, reconsidering whose interests are actually being served by the design of Health Canada’s regulatory process."
Gail Bartlett BSc. Agr., MBA:
"I am extremely concerned about Health Canada’s proposal to remove its oversight over some GM foods. While the current oversight is assuredly pretty weak, leaving far too much control in the hands of the companies that are producing the GMOs, this proposal of the abdication of government responsibility and oversight seems beyond belief. It’s bad enough that the biotech corporations have been able to fight mandatory labelling of GM products, but now to hide their products in the food chain with no oversight or accountability seems to fly in the face of good governance. People don’t want to consume GM foods, and because of our lax laws most people aren’t aware of how much they are actually consuming. Now it will be even more hidden from them. If GMOs are so good for us, why do the biotech companies want to hide their products from the consumers? This proposed legislation removes choice, which is what these corporations want. Where is the democracy in this decision?

"In my opinion you will be on the wrong side of history if you approve this further deregulation of a very troubling industry."

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